1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a vehicle washing apparatus with downwardly depending vehicle washing elements and to improved vehicle washing elements.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional carwashing devices typically include downwardly depending fabric panels or mitters. These panels are typically held at their upper edges and split into multiple verticle strips which hang downwardly in the path of a vehicle traveling through the carwash. The strips drag along and clean the surface of the vehicle. To enhance cleaning by these fabric panels, they are frequently displaceable relative to the traveling vehicle. For example, several prior art designs employ a mechanism for reciprocating the suspended panels from side-to-side. Other designs use support systems which oscillate the panels rotationally about a horizontal axis.
In addition to devices with depending fabric panels, rotatable fabric scrubbing brushes have been proposed, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,377,878 of Pecora and 4,338,698 of Beer et al. The brushes of these devices are understood to include cloth panels mounted to a rigid central hub or shaft. The panels are split in a direction normal to the shaft to provide plural fabric strips. In operation, it is believed that the shafts are oriented vertically for brushes used to clean the sides of a vehicle. In addition, brushes with horizontal shafts are believed used to clean the hood, roof, trunk, and other top surfaces of a vehicle. Thus, as the above described depending panels, the strips of brushes used to clean the top surfaces of a vehicle are vertical.
These devices suffer from a number of drawbacks, including their ineffectiveness in cleaning difficult to reach surfaces of a vehicle. For example, the overhanging roof of many vehicles tends to hold these vertically disposed strips away from the area of the windshield immediately underneath the overhang. Furthermore, brush type devices utilize combinations of side brushes and top brushes instead of a single washing apparatus which is capable of washing a relatively large percentage of the vehicle surface. In addition, many prior art designs are relatively complicated, making them costly to manufacture, purchase, and maintain.
Therefore, a need exists for an improved carwashing apparatus directed towards overcoming these and other problems of prior art devices.